Toyota's shares have dropped 50% within the last year, and this weekend they have said that they expect their first loss in 70 years. Sales have dropped by 31%, compared to 33% for Honda, and 41% for Chevrolet. Although the North American market is their largest, sales have flattened in India and China, too. That plant they were going to build in Mississippi? Forget about it...
South Korea auto conglomerates of Hyundai and Kia also are reporting belt tightening measures.
The White house has approved some bailout funds for Chrysler and GMC, but is basically going to let the new administration deal with the brunt of the problem, come February or March. Henry Paulson is asking for the second 350 billion dollars to dole out before January 20 to his friends, and anyone who is asking for it, no accounting or responsibility required.
An unrepentant Vice President Dick Cheney was once called by Joe Biden, the most dangerous Vice President in history, and that's just to his hunting buddies... Further sparring between the two has been happening during these last couple of weeks. Biden vows to cut back on the VP power, but only if he can keep the x-ray vision, while Cheney has called him a fool. That the expansion of the executive branch has been a good thing, or even a legal thing is something that will remain to be decided, especially if members of the Bush administration get taken to criminal court. Cheney has said that he did make the decision to allow waterboarding, and that they would have gone into Iraq no matter what the intelligence findings were.
If George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove all keep on being regulars Chatty Cathy's, there's no telling what else they will cop to. I say, let's bring back Rumsfeld into the mix, I'm sure there are things he'd like to get off of his chest, too...
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